WARNING. THE MOTHER IS CRAZY...CHILD CARE - CAN I LET HER GO?

This morning I had a casting for a toothpaste ad that happened to be at a studio right around the corner from Q’s new daycare. A daycare that’s so new it isn’t even open yet (owing to evil landlords and government bodies moving offices the week before easter), so I was able to bond with the owner over our mutual set-up and lease disasters and we are now fast friends.

I was in and out of the casting within minutes, which could be a good or a bad sign, you never can tell, but at least it was disaster free in relation to Q…except that she drew on all their application forms and stole their pen. But relative to some of her other performances when left momentarily unattended, that was pretty tame.

So then we toddled off to the daycare because yesterday when I’d gone in to return her forms, the delightful carers in her room suggested I bring her back today to familiarise her with the space…because I was talking a mile a minute and they had me pegged as a neurotic over protective mother the second they laid eyes on me.

I am having a tough time letting my girl go.

A really tough time.

Particularly given that she has more stamina than an LED lightbulb, craves other people’s attention and adores other children, loving them till they run away and hide or cry.

As I said to them, ‘it’s the mother having the problem here, not the child.’

And so I took them one of my famous four-minute brownies so that at least now they might say; ‘well she’s crazy, but she did make us brownie,’ rather than just saying she’s crazy, which is what they would definitely have been saying yesterday. Filing it away in Q’s notes, ‘warning. OOTM (one of those mothers).

Look, it’s nothing new. I’m certainly not original in my distress, and mine runs the whole gamut of concerns from:

·               What if nobody likes her?

·               What if somebody steals her? (Slightly arrogant to assume that out of 70 children a baddie would choose my girl over every other delightful child to steal, but I think I’ve established that not much of this is rational to begin with).

·               What if she needs me and I’m not there?

·               What if something happens? ‘Something’ being anything at all really, from not eating her sandwich to aliens landing in the sandpit.

·               And of course the real clanker…can I allow anyone else to care for my child? Freud told us that not wanting to leave your child with anyone means you don’t trust them.

No shit Sherlock. I thought Freud was meant to be a smart guy. Of course I don’t trust them. At least not initially. And then it’s not trust exactly, but I certainly doubt everyone else’s ability to do as good a job as I think I’m doing. Even Gregory. My husband. Q’s dad. Yes, I might be crazy but I’m also her mother. I don’t reckon I’m alone in this belief, I just might be the only one willing to publicly admit it.

So when we turned up at daycare, (me layden down with Q, her backpack, my handbag and a brownie) Q promptly got down, found herself a baby doll, told everyone around to be quiet because the baby was sleeping, walked up to Daniel the carer, coerced him into sitting down, climbed into his lap and read him a story.

For a while his name stumped her, because her baby cousin is called Daniel and she knows to be quiet around him because he might be sleeping, so we’ve established that this guy is Big Daniel instead.

Jeez it must be complicated in a kids’ mind.

Then she terrorised the outdoor area, marking her territory by driving any movable object until it hit and marked a freshly painted wall, and we rounded off the whole experience with a tantrum because I tried to make her eat lunch when clearly there was a puzzle to put together.

She regrouped, and we left with her waving and saying bye-bye-bye to everyone she had introduced herself to.

As I said before, the only person with a problem in this situation is the mother.

And so next week we go for real. I’m planning a half day at first, so I’ll drop her off around 9, find myself a local café and sit there, anxiously waiting for them to call and say she’s flipping out.

Seems like I could be sitting there for a rather long time.